Hope Church LV Sermons
The Lord's Supper: 01/01/2012
This past week I had a chance to travel back to Southeast Tennessee and spend four days with my immediate and my extended family, and on that trip I recognized something about myself that I really didn't like very much. I am 29 years old, and as far back as I can remember, the holiday and Christmas tradition in my family has looked exactly the same. We actually have it down to a science exactly what our celebration is going to look like. To the point that before I even got on the plane to travel back, I could already tell you what we were going to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, where we were going to eat it, who was going to be asked to pray before the meal, what subjects of discussion were going to be brought up, what jokes my uncle was going to make, who was going to be late to the event, who was going to be the first to leave, who was going to be the last to leave, when we were going to open presents, when we were going to take the annual family portrait, who was going to get mad while taking the annual family portrait. I mean, all of those things in my family are down to a science, and here's what I realized. I realized that because of that, and because of the way that I'm wired, if I'm not careful, I can be so preoccupied mentally with the schedule of all of our traditions and what's happening next, that sometimes I lose sight that the reason I'm there is just to enjoy my family and to celebrate the holidays. And maybe it's just me, I could be wrong, but I think that same challenge can sometimes represent itself in a church context. I mean, let's be honest, for some of us, every weekend we pull on to this campus and sometimes we'll park in the same general area, we'll walk in the same doors, say hello to the same people, of course we sit in the same general area. I mean, the front row is always open, yet some people still choose to sit in the back. And for the most part, we've pretty much got a gauge in terms of how the service is going to flow, and if we run over it all, the look on your face says a lot to the person who's teaching, just so you're aware, and if we're not careful, we can become so preoccupied with what's happening in the program and the church experience that we lose sight, that the reason we're here is to spend time together as a church family and a large group and to celebrate the fact that we have life in Jesus. And I say all that to say this, this morning we're going to celebrate one of the two ordinances that Jesus gave us as a church. This weekend we're going to celebrate the Lord's Supper. And when we distribute these elements in just a few moments and we observe the Lord's Supper, listen, this isn't religious ritual, this isn't going through the motions, this isn't what we're doing because it's that time on the calendar, celebrating this Supper? It's significant. It has great meaning for the believer, and I just think it's healthy every time we approach observing the Lord's Supper as a faith family, that we just have a fresh prayer in our heart that God would make this celebration fresh and meaningful. And so as we enter into this time to prepare our hearts to observe the Supper, my hope is that you would just even pray as we begin God, would you make this today fresh in my life? And God would you make it meaningful in my relationship with you? Not going through the motions, not thinking about what's next, but enjoying the privilege we have to do this as a faith family. As we begin, I want to give you a clarifying statement that really is an umbrella statement about the Lord's Supper. We're going to put it up on the screens, but here's the statement. The Lord's Supper is an opportunity for believers to celebrate and evaluate their relationship with God and with others. That's what the Supper is. It's a chance for you and I to rejoice and celebrate in the reality that we have a love relationship with God and that we have a relationship with each other. But it's also a chance, an opportunity for us to examine, us to evaluate, take a hard look at our relationship with God and our relationship with God's family. And as we begin, there's a couple of things I want us to be very, very clear about. First of all, what we're going to do in just a few moments, it's a symbol. It's symbolic. There is some teaching in our culture that would say, when we distribute these elements that the bread literally becomes the body of Jesus and the juice literally becomes the blood of Jesus. That is incorrect teaching and it is not biblical. Listen, in just a moment when we distribute these elements, it's just bread and it's just juice. But what it symbolizes is extremely significant. Because this Supper represents the invitation above every invitation that you and I have to a life of freedom and we're to take it serious. I wish all of you could go with me to North Africa to a conference we do there for about five to seven hundred pastors, leaders and missionaries. We always have a great conference there every year and the last thing we do every year at that conference is we celebrate the Lord's Supper together. And in 2010, I had the privilege of really navigating us through that time of celebrating the Lord's Supper. And I stand before these men and women who live in extremely difficult circumstances. I mean, where they call home, you can't just openly, verbally, share the gospel. You can't just openly walk with a copy of the scriptures in your hand or you'll incur persecution or punishment. And I remember standing up in front of this group of people and unpacking the symbolism that the Lord's Supper represents and looking across the room and having such a sense from them of both reverence and awe because they understood the significance of the symbol that is being represented in the Lord's Supper, but it's a symbol. Also something I want us all to be clear on, this is an act of obedience. 2000 years ago, Jesus gave his church the Lord's Supper and generation after generation after generation, believers have gathered around this table to remember and celebrate the Supper as an act of obedience in response to what Jesus told us to do. And the scripture gives us some guidelines in terms of how we're to approach this, but it really says more about why we are to practice the Lord's Supper than it really does about when or how. What the scripture teaches us about when, it says this, it says as often as you do it, do it in remembrance of me. That's all we got. Some people take that to mean weekly and in their church context, they take this separate weekly. Others do it monthly. For us at Hope, we do it three to four times a year because when we do it, we build the entire experience around celebrating the Lord's Supper together. But the Bible says as often as you do it, remember me. That word remember means memorial. It means to call back to mind something that happened in the past. So every time we do this, as often as we do it, we are to remember what the Bible teaches about how we're to observe this Supper. It simply says do it in order, first the bread and then the juice. But when speaking of why, the scripture gives us a lot more direction so that you and I can understand why we observe the Lord's Supper. And to really bring some clarity to that, I want us to look today at a passage of scripture in Mark chapter 14. So if you have your copy of the Bible, would you turn to the second book in the New Testament, the Gospel of Mark chapter 14? And in just a moment, I'm going to start reading in verse 22. If you're visiting with us today, currently as a church, we're studying straight through Hebrews chapter 11 in a series called Not By Sight. And next weekend, we are jumping back into that series. But this weekend, we just felt it was appropriate to take the beginning week of this year and to celebrate together around the Lord's Table. If you don't have a Bible this morning, we're going to put these verses on the screen. We would love for you to read along with us as we read the text this morning. Here's what the Bible says in Mark 14 verse 22. While they were eating, he, meaning Jesus, took some bread. And after a blessing, he broke it and gave it to them and said, "Take it. This is my body." And would he have taken a cup and given thanks, he gave it to them and they all drink from it. And he said to them, "This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." After singing a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives. Out of these verses, as we prepare this morning to celebrate the Lord's Supper, I want to give you three reminders of why we do this. I want to answer the why question with really three answers very quickly and then we're going to observe this Supper together this morning. Here's the first reminder of why we observe the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper anchors us in the reality of the cross. When we celebrate this Supper, it anchors our heart and our mind in the reality of the cross of Jesus Christ. The word gospel literally means good news. It's good news. And one of the major components to the good news is the cross of Jesus. If there's no cross, there's no gospel. If you ever hear a teacher or someone in conversation shares with you a gospel that does not include the cross of Christ, they are sharing with you false doctrine because the gospel includes the brutal cross of Jesus in 1707, Isaac Watts wrote a powerful hymn called the Wonderful Cross. Here's what he said. He says, "When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died, my richest gain I count but loss and poor contempt on all my pride." He says, "Oh, the wonderful cross, oh, the wonderful cross bids me come and I and find that I may truly live." When we celebrate this Supper, it anchors us in the horrific yet wonderful reality of the cross of Jesus. I want you to imagine for a moment what it must have been like, what we have recorded in Mark 14, what it must have been like in that room. Jesus is with his closest friends, his disciples, and they're in a room on top of a house that's referred to as the upper room. And these guys had walked with him for three years. They had heard everything he had taught, everything he had said. And numerous times they had witnessed him use figurative language to teach a spiritual principle, meaning they were there when he said, "I'm the light." When he said, "I'm the vine." When he said, "I'm the door," when he said, "I'm the gate," when he said, "I'm the good shepherd." Now, was he literally any of those things? No. But he was painting a picture for them so that they could connect it with a spiritual principle. But sitting around this table in Mark 14, he took that to a whole new level because here's what he did. He picked up a piece of bread and he said, "This bread represents my body that very soon is going to be broken." And then he took the wine and he said, "This wine is a symbol of my blood because very soon my blood is going to be spilled out for the sins of humanity." And in that moment, the disciples didn't understand it totally. I mean, I'm sure they connected a little bit, but they didn't understand the magnitude of what Jesus was saying to them in that moment. What he was really doing was pointing them towards the reality of the cross. And this morning, very quickly, I want us to just have in our hearts two dimensions about the cross and just have them fresh in our heart this morning. Here's the first one. The cross was a place of sacrifice. The cross was a place of sacrifice. Jesus here wasn't referring to a minor beating at all. He was referring to a brutal crucifixion in which he would be beaten and humiliated, killed, and buried for the sins of humanity. John chapter 19 really paints the picture for us. I just want to read it so we can have an understanding. Here's what the Bible says. It says, "Pilot then took Jesus and scourged him, and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and put a purple robe on him. And they began to come up to him and say, "Hail King of the Jews." And then they began to give him slaps in the face. They took Jesus, therefore, and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the Place of the Skull, which is also in Hebrew called Golgotha. There, they crucified Jesus. Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic. Now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece. So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but let us cast lots for it to decide who's it shall be." After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished. To fulfill the scripture said, "I'm thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there, so they put a sponge full of sour wine upon a branch of hissep and brought it up to his mouth. Therefore, when Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, "It is finished." He bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. That should affect us. That should move us that the innocent God of heaven would put himself in a place like that, a place of sacrifice on the cross. The cross was a place of sacrifice, but also another dimension I want us to have fresh in our hearts is that the cross was a place of substitute. You see, Jesus wasn't hanging on the cross because he was guilty or he was deserving. Jesus was hanging on the cross in our place because we're guilty and we're deserving. He wasn't there because of his sin. He was there because of our sin. And he went there to establish a new covenant. He says in verse 24, "He went to establish his blood covenant." You see, throughout history and the Old Testament, humanity had been trying to figure out how can we atone for our sin? Is there a sacrifice out there that can atone for the sins of humanity for all eternity? And they had tried time and time again to sacrifice animals. And over and over and over, they would lift up these burnt offerings, these animal sacrificing hoping that some way it could atone for their sin, but it never worked. But Jesus, being God, came to earth, lived 33 years of perfect life and went to the cross as the perfect and sufficient substitute for the sin of humanity. Finally, there was a sacrifice that could do it. Finally there was a sacrifice that could pay for your sin and my sin, not just for today, but for all eternity. The cross was a place where the perfect, sufficient substitute went to die for our sin. Max Ander says this, "On the cross, Jesus would fulfill the old covenant and establish a new covenant. The animal sacrifices of the old covenant were carried out repeatedly. The new covenant was accomplished once and for all by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. Salvation no longer would come by Old Testament avenues, but by faith in Jesus Christ." John the Baptist makes a statement in the Gospel of John 1 verse 29. He's speaking with some people and he sees Jesus in the distance and here's what he said. He says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." John was foreshadowing the sacrificial and substitutionary death of Jesus. He says, "We've been trying animal after animal, but finally, God has sent the perfect Lamb, Jesus Christ Himself to take the sacrifice and the penalty for our sin, to establish a new way, a new avenue in which you and I can have a relationship with God, establish a new blood covenant that wasn't dependent on us anymore, but was totally dependent on Him." William Barclay says that this, "I love this statement." He says, "What did He mean when He said that the cup stood for a new covenant? The word means something like an arrangement, a bargain, a relationship. The covenant was entirely dependent on Israel keeping the law. If the law was broken, the covenant was broken and the relationship between God and the nation shattered. It was a relationship entirely dependent on law, but Jesus says, "I'm introducing and ratifying a new covenant, a new kind of relationship between God and man, and it is not dependent on law. It is dependent on the blood that I was shed, that is to say it is dependent solely on love." Aren't you thankful this morning that Jesus chose to be the sacrifice, to be the substitute so that our relationship with Him was completely dependent on love? When we celebrate this Supper, it reminds us, it anchors our heart and our mind in the reality of the cross of Jesus Christ. But here's a second reminder of why we celebrate this Supper. The Lord's Supper challenges us to live for what really matters. A second reminder of why we do this, why we're celebrating this morning is because we need to be challenged to live for what really matters, which begs a great question. What is it in the life of a Jesus follower that really matters? We can answer it in one word, relationships. The most important thing for any Jesus follower is your relationships, and when we celebrate around this Supper, we're confronted with the question, "Am I making my relationships of the utmost priority in my life?" we're forced to wrestle with that. When Jesus was on earth, the relationships that consumed His life were His relationship with His Heavenly Father, His relationship with His disciples, and the relationship He had with the world. And if that is what His life looked like when He was on earth, that is exactly what His life will look like when it's pressed out through us. And this morning as we celebrate this Supper, we have to ask the question, "Am I living for what really matters? Am I putting priority on my relationship with God, on my relationship with God's family, and on my relationship with the world?" That's what really matters. But we're also forced to wrestle with something else. We're also confronted with the fact that we have a mission. The mission is what matters. He says here, "This is my blood covenant which will be poured out for the many." I love that phrase, "Pored out for the many." You see, what He saved us for, it's bigger than us as individuals. It's bigger than us as a church. It's about the many. And it is very easy for us as a body of believers to be so consumed with now and ourselves that we forget we have a mission to the many. And in just a moment when we distribute these elements, I hope you're thinking about your relationship with the many because those are the people that God desperately desires to rescue and save and He wants to use us in the process. That's what really matters. And we can't observe this Supper without being confronted with the reality of, "Am I making the relationships in my life a priority? And am I engaging in the mission? Am I abiding in Christ? Am I connecting in community? And am I sharing in the global mission of Jesus?" That's what really matters. And when we observe this, we're challenged for that. Here's a third reminder of why we observe the Lord's Supper. The Lord's Supper encourages us about the future. The Lord's Supper encourages us about the future. Look at verse 25. He says, "Truly I say to you, I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God." Jesus chose to give us this practice, to share with His disciples, with His church, that there's a glorious future that awaits us who know Him. You see, sitting in the room with the disciples that day, He knew it was going to get harder before it got easier. But He points them in this verse to a day that is coming. When there's no more pain, there's no more sorrow, there's no more death, and there's no more struggle. And He assures that to every person who chooses to follow Him. And so He gave us this to encourage His church. As often as you do this, remember me, but also think about a day that is coming that we're going to celebrate this Supper again in paradise. And for us, as we begin a new year, I hope today you will be encouraged because that's one of the reasons why Jesus wants us to celebrate this Supper. Here's the why. We do this to anchor our hearts in the reality of the horrific yet wonderful cross. We celebrate this Supper so that we can be challenged to live for what really matters, to give our lives for what really counts, and so we can be encouraged about the future. No one there's a day coming that we will take this again in His Kingdom. This morning, just a moment, we're going to distribute these elements. But this Supper, having impact in your life today, is really dependent on one thing. One thing, the attitude of your heart. And just as there are many things we want to celebrate today, there's also some major components that we want to evaluate. Look at this statement by J.C. Ryle. It's a challenging statement. He says this, "The benefit of the Lord's Supper depends entirely on the spirit and frame of mind in which we receive it. The bread which we eat and the juice which we drink have no power to do good to our souls as medicine does good to our bodies without the cooperation of our hearts and wills. They will not convey any blessing to us by virtue of the minister's consecration if we do not deceive them rightly, worthily, and with faith. To assert, as some do, that the Lord's Supper must do good to all communicates, whatever be the state of mind in which they receive it, is a monstrous and unscriptural figment and has given rise to gross and wicked suspicions." We learn from the New Testament through the example of Judas Iscariot, that it's possible to be in a scene like this and be fake, that it's possible to be sitting at the table with Jesus in the flesh, yet not be a disciple of Christ, to be inauthentic in what we are presenting to the people around us. And here would be my hope this morning that as we evaluate, if you're here today and you know in your heart that you don't have a relationship with God, that today would be the day you choose to acknowledge your sin and your brokenness before Him, and you cry out to Jesus for life and put your faith in Him in according to Scripture, He will save you. But there also may be some people here and you're a believer, but you know what you're putting up is a front. And I hope for you before we observe this supper, that there may be a few moments of just repenting, and thank God I'm sorry. I'm sorry for wearing a mask, I'm sorry for the lies, I'm sorry for putting up all this front that people think I'm really a spiritual person, but God I know in my heart, I am far from you. It's all about the attitude of our heart. Verse Corinthians 11 gives us this warning, "Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord, but a man must examine himself and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup." This is a serious warning. And here's what's scary, it is possible by us choosing not to set our hearts in the right place, that we could dishonor God this morning with the very practice in which He gave us to honor Him. That's scary, that He gave us this practice to draw close to Him, but because some of us are unwilling to repent and humble ourselves, we would actually dishonor God with the very practice that He gave us to honor Him. So here are a couple of areas I want you to think about. I want you to examine today your relationship with God. Do you know Him? Have you made knowing Jesus the ultimate pursuit of your life? Are you growing an intimacy with your Heavenly Father? Is there anything in your relationship with God that is not right? Are you saying today, 2012, I'm going to make a priority out of pursuing Jesus above everything else and walking with integrity and with purity? We also need to examine our relationship with God's family. Do you honestly value what we have here as a faith family? Are you taking serious the relationships in this room? Is there anything with you and another brother and sister in Christ that you know in your heart is not right? And even as I say that, the Holy Spirit may be bringing some people to mind. And I hope before you would ever think about observing this supper that you would solidify in your heart if they're not in this room, that you're going to go and make that right as soon as you can. Listen, it's not worth it. The mission is too urgent and it's too important for us to be conflicting with each other. We need to make it right and this is an opportunity to evaluate those relationships. Are you walking in humility with the people who are around you? Those are all things that you and I need to evaluate and either repent or obey prior to observing this supper. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to have a few moments to examine. We're going to have a few moments to evaluate and then we're going to have a time to celebrate. So I want to ask our worship team to come. I want to ask our ushers to go ahead and come and we're going to prepare these things. The band is going to begin to play, but I want you just where you are to go ahead and bow your head. And I want you to just begin the process of examination. I want you to begin to think about your relationship with God and your relationship with other people. [BLANK_AUDIO]